#30dayswild Day 17- garden bug hotel

For Day 17 of #30dayswild we finished making the bug hotel that we’ve added to the garden. This has been a work in progress since just before the start of #30dayswild. We had a small bug house already, made from a wooden box, but wanted to add extra space for minibeasts in the garden.

The bug hotel started off as a pallet. In to the pallet we’ve added a variety of different materials to give bugs and insects places to make their homes. These include pinecones, straw, an old straw hat, wooden logs with holes drilled into them, broken plants pots and some plant pots full of bark chippings, some wool, partly for the bugs and partly for birds to collect for nesting and some wedges of wood collected when we’ve been tree felling. Finally this evening we cut up bamboo canes, pushed out the centre and tied them into little bundles. They’ve been slotted into the side of the bug hotel in a south facing position to provide a home for solitary bees. On top of the hotel we’ve planted a pot of pollinator friendly wildflowers and there is also a bee waterer, a half coconut shell with marbles in it, filled with sugar water to provide a little boost for tired bees.

The bug hotel is attached to the side of our shed, close to our plum tree and pollinator borders and we hope that it will provide a home for lots of creepy crawlies.